"Customers are the heart of any business. But we can't succeed if we develop only one talk addressed to the 'average customer.' Instead we must know each customer and build our individual engagements with that knowledge. If Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is going to work, it calls for skills in Customer Data Integration (CDI). This is the best book that I have seen on the subject. Jill Dyché is to be complimented for her thoroughness in interviewing executives and presenting CDI." -Philip Kotler, S. C. Johnson Distinguished Professor of International Marketing Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University "In this world of killer competition, hanging on to existing customers is critical to survival. Jill Dyché's new book makes that job a lot easier than it has been." -Jack Trout, author, Differentiate or Die "Jill and Evan have not only written the definitive work on Customer Data Integration, they've made the business case for it. This book offers sound advice to business people in search of innovative ways to bring data together about customers-their most important asset-while at the same time giving IT some practical tips for implementing CDI and MDM the right way." -Wayne Eckerson, The Data Warehousing Institute author of Performance Dashboards: Measuring, Monitoring, and Managing Your Business Whatever business you're in, you're ultimately in the customer business. No matter what your product, customers pay the bills. But the strategic importance of customer relationships hasn't brought companies much closer to a single, authoritative view of their customers. Written from both business and technicalperspectives, Customer Data Integration shows companies how to deliver an accurate, holistic, and long-term understanding of their customers through CDI.

Patricia Sandmeier demonstrates how a transfer of elements from Extreme Programming to the development practice of industrial products can improve customer integration activities in the product innovation process and the innovativeness of the resulting new products.

Customer integration in the early innovation phase, considered the method of choice in theory and practice, has shown unexpected side effects that may even outweigh its recognized advantages. As a result, management needs to be able to assess in advance whether the involvement of customers will add overall value to an innovation project. This book develops a mathematical formula to support this decision.

Jörg Sesselmann presents the first comprehensive guide to customer integration from a branding perspective. The author establishes a classification of the vast landscape of co-creation, co-design, co-production, interactive value creation and mass customization and evaluates benefits and success factors for brands. He provides insight into leading case studies from the fast food, apparel and toy industry as well as practical implementation checklists and guidelines. The book provides thought-provoking impulse for marketing, brand management and strategy professionals as well as for researchers, lecturers and students.

Inhaltsangabe:Introduction: There is a difference between a good company and a great company. A good company offers excellent products and services. A great company also offers excellent products and services but also strives to make the world a better place . As this quote clearly demonstrates, the importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is on the rise. Indeed, more and more companies are engaging in CSR-related activities such as cause-related marketing (CRM), employee volunteering (EV) or corporate philanthropy (CP). According to Bhattacharya and Sen more than 80% percent of Fortune 500 companies deal with CSR issues in the United States (US). In European countries such as Germany, the numbers of companies with CSR initiatives is similarly growing. Among those firms are famous examples such as Starbucks and The Body Shop as well as the German companies BMW or SAP. There are several reasons for this trend. On the one hand, companies are increasingly put under pressure to behave socially responsible from different sides. First, consumers today are more sensitive to business practices of companies and can exert their power by means of boycotts resulting in negative economic consequences for firms. This is especially the case in times of increasing media coverage and advances in information technology where bad business practices become more easily transparent. Particularly, recent corporate scandals like those of Enron, or Shell, among others, make a contribution to consumers skepticism. Then, globalization leads to new challenges for companies because on the one hand, they are operating in countries with lower standards of living resulting in higher needs for socially responsible behavior in the respective society. On the other hand, worldwide competition is being strengthened in markets, which are characterized by low levels of product differentiation. CSR offers a source of competitive advantage because it enhances the overall reputation of the company and provides a valuable basis for differentiation. Besides that, companies are feeling pressure by a rise in public standards for social performance (e.g. the United Nations Global Compact). On the other hand, there is evidence that CSR is not only the right thing to do but it also leads to doing better because there is a positive relationship between a company s CSR activities and its stakeholders; especially consumers can be positively influenced. For one thing, market [...]

Customer Integration Attaining higher levels of customer delight, increasing the speed and efficiency in the product development process, and increasing profits are goals many managers are struggling to achieve. Customer Integrated Decision Making, or CIDM, is a process that will show managers how to reach these goals by integrating the customer into the decision-making process and incorporating the customer's wants and needs into the design of new products and services. Customer Integration: The Quality Function Deployment (QFD) Leader's Guide for Decision Making focuses on the complete CIDM/QFD process. The book details the reasons for using CIDM market identification techniques, and QFD idea generation methodologies, as well as some basic and advanced customer "choice" prediction approaches. This practical, structured, and replicable process will provide a company of any size with the tools to assure its teams' success as they move to become linked to the customer. Customer Integration opens with a comprehensive overview for executives, followed by a detailed discussion of how CIDM/QFD can increase profits for businesses in a variety of industries. The executive overview reviews the issues confronting companies today and gives reasons why executives will need to be linked to customers to compete. The second part of the book lays out some of the foundation knowledge that middle managers will need to have in order to commit to supporting individuals and teams and to complete CIDM/QFD projects. Part II also offers practical discussions on the critical role of leadership and the challenges of implementation. The third part of the book provides a step-by-step explanation of the process, along with a complete review of the necessary concepts and tools to make a CIDM/QFD project happen. Customer Integration is designed for the whole company. It provides the information executives and managers need to undertake a Customer Integrated Decision-Making project and the knowledge that team members need to assure success in their project. Advance praise for Customer Integration "Customer Integration is written for the entire management team, from the executive to the project team members, challenging all not only to decide to use CIDM/QFD, but to achieve maximum value from the process. This is a book for those who believe delighting customers is a state of the art." --Michael E. Holtzleiter Manager-Europe, Senco Fastening Systems "The CIDM concepts in this book go beyond the QFD matrix analysis to show how to introduce the process into a company and how to lead a multifunctional team through the process. These concepts are helping us balance the voice of the customer in our product development process. After just one project, it is adding clarity and objectivity to our decisions by highlighting the trade-offs that must be made between customer wants, competitive pressures, and our company's capabilities." --Ronald A. Weeks Corporate Planning Director, Cincom Systems, Inc. "Having completed a CIDM project, I found Customer Integration to be a comprehensive documentation of this incredible process. This very replicable methodology truly allows companies to get at the 'real' customer requirements. The way the book is divided into sections for the executive, project and middle manager, and team members provides a clear perspective on 'hands on' for each." --Steve Nelson Manager-Emerging Markets, Senco Fastening Systems "If you are looking for structured processes that provide you with a better understanding of your customers, an understanding about what they mean by value, that promotes 'leveling' of customer knowledge among the enterprise, that assures 'true' teaming and reduces the time to bring innovations into the marketplace, then Customer Integration is the book that you have been looking for." --John Edholm Vice President-Sales & Marketing, Pierce and Stevens

The material is concerned with fundamental activities of organizations - how they provide goods and services. The increase in international competition has seen a resurgence of interest in the development of this field.